


Choices

by wereallmadinhere



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wereallmadinhere/pseuds/wereallmadinhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've reached the end of the line and the Doctor has a choice to make. Set during the final scenes of Journeys end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

You know that you have a choice to make and that it has to be made soon. There is no time to sit and agonise or to think about this carefully. You can see her timelines stretching out ahead of her, and you know that whatever you decide is going to shape her life. You think about letting her stay; about enjoying years of love and laughter and adventure with her, but you know that one day she won’t be able to keep up. Her joints will ache and her bones will crunch and you won’t resent her for it – you never could – but she’ll resent herself. You’ll watch as she turns on herself; she’ll try to hide the bitterness from you, but you’ve seen it before in yourself, and she saved you from it. It will hurt that you can’t save her in return. Then the days will come when people will no longer assume she is your wife, but rather your mother and eventually grandmother and every time it happens you’ll see a little of the light in her you love so much fade away. But she’ll keep going, for you she’ll keep going. Then one day she won’t. Her body’s protests will win and she’ll fall, and you’ll help her up not because you’re a gentleman but because without you she’ll have no choice but to lie on the ground in a defeated heap. She’ll stay in the TARDIS for most of the time after that, in her bed which she stopped sharing with you a long time ago adamant that you should be disgusted by the prospect of sleeping next to an old lady. You’re not though because it’s her and you love her still.   
All of this is presuming she makes it to an old woman; that she won’t get in the way of a stray bullet or knife that was meant for you. She’d die in your arms and you’d hate her a little bit, for leaving you, for giving up her single life to save one of your many. You’d regress back into the twisted, cold man you used to be and this time she wouldn’t be there to save you. Nobody would be there because the walls that she spent years crumbling down will have hardened into metal shields that nobody will be willing to fight past.  
Or you could let her go. You could send her away with this human version of yourself and you could pretend that nothing bad will ever happen to them. You will miss her; for a while it’ll ache so much that you’ll wonder if it was ever worth it. But she’ll always live on in your memory and you will never forget the days you spent with her by your side. Days where the grass was greener and the stars were brighter and everything sparkled in the light of her smile.   
You find yourself back on the beach where you last abandoned the shattered pieces of your heart and you prepare for it to happen again. You feel cruel for hoping that she’ll put up a bit of a fight; that she won’t accept this immediately. Then again maybe it’s best if she doesn’t. You’ve never been able to deny her anything, and if she asks to stay you don’t think you’ll be able to say no. You give her a piece of your TARDIS and you hope she understands that this isn’t just you giving her a means to travel. The TARDIS is part of you, a part of you that she can keep with her for the rest of her days. Then she’s kissing him and you’re turning away because even if he is you in essence you still can’t help the jealousy. You know this isn’t an adequate goodbye and that she’ll probably be angry about that for a while, but you can’t face it and you know she’ll forgive you in the end because she’s Rose. Back in the TARDIS you take a deep breath and feel the timelines dissolving along with your ship. You think about prodding at the new ones and seeing what might come now for your pink and yellow girl, but you pull yourself away. There are more important things at hand and besides sometimes ignorance really is bliss.


End file.
